Mr. Bad Ass Gets a TV Show

Jesse James, kin to the real bad ass, emerges as a working-class hero.

February 2004 By STEVE SPENCE Photos By ERIC HAMEISTER

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The show attracted 2.9 million viewers, a 61-percent increase over the ratings of the science-y show it replaced. Beers, now 47, recalls: "They [Discovery] called and said they wanted eight more shows. We were a little production company, and at that moment, I had a panic attack. Omigod, how're we gonna do that? And then they called back and said, 'No, no—we want 13 more!"

And Jesse James was riding again.

Another chunk of banter with Jesse.

Me: You did what?

Jesse: When I was 16, I went to the Ice Capades in San Diego and stole Scott Hamilton's Porsche. [Hamilton was a star of the show.]

Me: You're kidding.

Jesse: It was in VIP parking, a brand-new green-on-green 930 Turbo.

Me: You stole it?

Jesse: With Colorado plates that said (grins), "I SKATE."

Me: What'd you do with it?

Jesse: Pulled the fucking motor out and sold it. Sold the wheels. Cut it up. (Jailhouse evil in his eyes now.) I didn't get caught for that one. (Pausing, he looks down.) But I did get caught for a bunch of other stuff. [Called on this, a startled spokesman at Hamilton's agent's office replied, "Uh, yeah, that's true."]

He comes from that part of L.A. you don't see on TV, the harsh industrial flatlands to the south where the windows come with bars, the not-so-promised land of Compton, on down to the gritty port town of Long Beach. Culturally, he seems one part Southern California white boy, one part vato (a way of saying "bro'" in Spanish). "I thought my name was Huero growing up," he says (the word means "white boy"). Beverly Hills is a solar system away.

He was born in nearby Lynwood 34 years ago, but his parents divorced when he was a child, and he lived with one or the other at various addresses in the vicinity. He describes his father as "a white Fred Sanford," a swap-meet trader. His mom was a florist for a funeral parlor. There were two older sisters and a stepbrother, and you get the idea Jesse was left to his own devices. He got in fights and he stole and he says twice he wound up in the California Youth Authority—jail for teenagers—at Banning. "For bullshit." But you don't get the idea he was there very long; he's too smart for that.

If there aren't too many people around, he can be reflective. "I don't really talk to my dad that much. My parents never had much to do with what I had going on." If you show interest, he'll say even more. "I'm glad I went through what I did growing up—but you know, I hated my parents when I grew up, I hated the stuff I went through, I hated the way—(exhales) I was just an unhappy kid. I was [living] with my dad and whichever particular chick he was married to at the time. Half the stuff I got busted for, got in trouble with, I wouldn't have done if my dad had just been home."